Can existence be validated without sensory
We are limited by our five sense, we use our five senses to validate our reality.
If you loose your sense, never had past experiences of your reality but maintain your own awareness does reality still exist?
What role would logic, knowledge, faith and wisdom play to bring meaning?
If you loose your sense, never had past experiences of your reality but maintain your own awareness does reality still exist?
What role would logic, knowledge, faith and wisdom play to bring meaning?
Comments (64)
Well, no. I can talk to you, and hence make use of your senses, as well as your sense, common or otherwise.
Quoting SteveMinjares
Isn't this the same question as, "Does the cup cease to exist when put away in the cupboard?"
What's your answer to that?
It may or not still exist, you would have no way of knowing. The reality you could confirm would be your experience of your own mind which requires no experience or senses to detect.
Quoting SteveMinjares
Bring meaning to what?
More broadly, that conclusion comes at the end of a process of selectively doubting as much as possible, until Descartes realised that in order to doubt there must be a doubter.
What could a mind without senses doubt?
How the human mind interpret reality, and how does the conscious mind adapt to changes like how a blind man adapts to the world..
As for Meaning is pretty arbitrary, in a sense on how you navigate your own existence to bring yourself gratification while doing it in a way that is acceptable by society standards. Which contradicts what I said earlier if there is no sensory input to acknowledge another person, who do you get approval from? If there is no one to be accountable too. Does that undermine morality and how the consciousness pursue personal gratification?
From my personal perspective, it’s irrelevant it only becomes relevant to me when it is needed. Knowledge is only relevant if it can be implemented in ones lifetime. To learn and understand something that will never be used is just a waste of time and ones life.
As for the cup scenario I just have faith it will be there. Faith is not just a spiritual concept is also a practical concept.
Like starting a business I think it there for it becomes my reality. If not now it will be later in my future. I think it therefore it is.
Faith is not exclusive to religion. Is a way of thinking and how it explains a trusting relationship with anything in life. From marriage, work, or any kind of relationship in our existence.
Is a form of confidence knowing the cup will be there. Whether it disappears the moment you close the cupboard door than reappears the moment you open it is irrelevant. As long as it is present when needed, ready to serve its purpose.
If someone asked you were the cup is, would you say "in the cupboard", or would you say "I put it in the cupboard, but can't verify that it is indeed still here"?
If, on inspection, you found that the cup was not in the cupboard where you had left it, you would be entitled to ask why, to make enquiries. You would seek a cause for the anomaly.
A seperate point: Faith is different to trust. You might arguably simply trust that the cup is there when it can't be seen. Faith, in contrast, is belief despite, or in the face of, the facts. Faith believes this is the blood of Christ, despite the fact that it is wine. Faith would be insisting the cup was absent when all could see it.
True but I would think the cup is serving a more urgent need greater than my own. And the answer to my question will be answered on its own time. It will come naturally to me and I don’t need to pursue it.
Quoting Banno
I think that is the problem with faith is a matter of personal interpretation.
My personal definition of faith is having a loving and trusting relationship.
That is why many loose faith because they assume faith is following laws and technicality. Than you have atheist doing rituals who go to Church (but that’s a subject for another time)
Faith to me is described as a type of relationship and I’m not just talking about God. But relationship with people too.
I understand as a Christian I am supposed to talk about God but belief and faith to me are two separate things. That serves different purposes.
That’s why I say...
Faith is having love, trust and confidence in your relationships with...
Family
Wife
Children
Friends
Yourself
God (If you desire to believe)
Is a life style...
Purpose to have faith is to Live, Love, be Happy and Heal broken hearts as you live.
Nothing fancy just keeping it simple.
That's a mighty idiosyncratic definition of faith. If you are a Bible believer then (amongst other definitions) it is:
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1
Generally faith is how people explain holding a belief when they don't have good reason for it. In the context of theology it isn't the same thing as love and it needs to be said that you can introduce me to the people you listed above. God, it could be said, remains undetectable, absent - at best the subject of cryptic signs or speculations. Or, in the absence of evidence... faith.
A married man has a wife, she loves him and She loves her.
There is no physical proof that she will stay faithful to him. Just her love which is the testimony of her fidelity. Will she every be with another man? The only thing that is certain is that love is sustaining the faith in there marriage. Is the love for one another that cause them to believe in each other without proof.
A married man has a wife, she loves him and he loves her**. “Typo correction”
It depends on what you mean by "reality". Reality, so broadly construed, is the combination of your senses interacting with consciousness. If we had no senses at all, it's plausible that we'd still have consciousness, only that the "external world" would be significantly or maybe totally impoverished.
It would be hard to argue one would be able to acquire knowledge, wisdom and the like, though logic and mathematics are different. You said if we "maintain" our awareness. If that presupposes we once had senses, then I believe we'd still have an image of the world in our minds, but that would likely atrophy as more time goes on.
If we never had any contact with the world through our senses, it's hard to work out what would happen in consciousness. But whatever remains would be "reality". There's nothing more such a word could mean in such conditions.
The conscious mind without sense is in reference to the fetus, the unborn child. Whether the senses are dormant, non existent or the child simply forgot what he/she experienced while in the womb. This describes how the conscious mind is clean and pure, protected from the external. My perspective is that experience is just a manipulative factor not the cause of awareness.
The Helen Keller Story is a reference to the struggle on acknowledge reality with limited senses.
These two examples is an attempt to explain Faith and how it is an intricate part in interpreting reality.
Faith define as in behavioral (Two definition: Faith of Spirit and Faith of the Mind)
These example is an attempt to present an idea and how we pursue Truth (Proof). That in our pursuit for Truth, it may or may not be observable due to our own limitations.
Maybe when humanity evolves and acquire new senses it will become observable. Or the Truth may manifest itself in another form to where it can be recognized.
Faith is vital due to the existence of witnesses and testimonies. For example, a blind person asking another person to describe color to him. How do you describe “Red”, “Blue” and “Green” to someone who never experienced sight?
The blind person has a choice to trust in the testimony or not. Whatever he decides will become his reality.
Color being the proof you are seeking
Witness is your fellow peer
Blind person is the person who didn’t witness the proof.
Faith is the choice to “Trust”. Do you trust the Witness testimony or not. Whatever you decide, to believe or not, faith is a constant. Without proof to support your convictions then there is just Faith.
What?
Quoting SteveMinjares
That't be having a loving and trusting relationship, not faith. Faith is a form of believe, but as I said, it;s not just unjustified belief, it's belief that defies justification.
As such it is an evil. Quoting Tom Storm
It's holding a belief despite there being evidence to the contrary.
You're equivocating between faith and commitment. Related, but not the same.
There's much care to be taken in doing philosophy. There's a difference between reality and belief. Belief is what you take to be true. Reality is what is indeed true, despite what you believe.
Reality is the same for everyone. That's rather the point of distinguishing it from belief and from our reactions, emotional or intellectual.
Hence there is no "his reality".
There's an intellectual trap, in which one supposes that the world is different for each person. If you think on that for a bit, you may see that it cannot be so. Those around you experience the very same world you do, but they may react to it differently. The difference is not in the world, but in the reaction each person has.
You might also note that we have already gone beyond out five senses. Not just with microscopes and telescopes, the trite examples; consider that with push of a few buttons on your phone you can have your position on the Earth to within a few metres; or with an fMRI you can watch your own brain functioning.
Trust and faith are distinct. Trust is earned and warranted. Faith is demanded and conscripted.
Again that's not faith as the term is applied to God. Again you are talking about a reasonable expectation based on evidence - you can identify a marriage and a couple and see them together. We even have ways to measure the strength of a marriage. We don't have any evidence like this for God.
Commitment and trust would feature more prominently in an open marriage than a closed one. So if love is commitment and trust, it would be greater without fidelity.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10481/define-morality/p1
Christians fail to see the immorality of their creed and acts. They presume they have the moral high ground, not noticing the inadequacy of what is in essence an appeal to authority.
From the OP
That is not my Faith. My faith is different, is trusting in what you believe. You test your belief through trust. And by this behavior of trust I confirmed the spirit is real.
Example:
If someone claims this medication will heal my illness. You either decide to trust it and take the medication. Note the effects, if the effects observed proves to be positive it is true, if the effects observed proved to be negative or none existent than it is false. If you decide not to trust then you are just left with wonder.
Through my trust in God I confirmed my belief to be true because I observed the effects to be positive. Is up to the audience to believe in the Witness testimony or not. If you don’t believe in the Witness, then believe in the result through the behavior of Trust. Is by this behavior Truth reveals itself or what you call proof.
Good reasons not to accept your definition.
http://www.lib.csu.ru/ER/ER_Philosophy/?????_??????????/???????/CUP/Knowledge,%20Belief,%20and%20Faith.pdf
That is one problem there “as I understand it” meaning is a perspective I cannot validated and you are telling me to trust his testimony of thought which in turn require me to have faith in him and his thought process.
I disagree, faith can be as basic as just believing that God exist.
That is a paradox since no human has the authority to judge what is the right way or wrong way to practice faith. And by this you break your own laws because by passing judgment on how to practice faith you are claiming you are God. Only the Spirit has authority not man.
Interesting question. I'm curious what roles other parts of the brain plays into this, such as the cerebellum and spatial awareness. The cerebellum and the brain would still be active; in spite of no senses. The loss of all senses may force the brain to compensate and re-route, new sensations outside of the 5 senses may arise. What about dreams? Hallucinations? Etc..
Being born this way from birth may also cause severely stunted development; they'd definitely probably have to be tube fed forever.
Some blind people can still see light. The totally blind can still have hallucinations (this may be the brain compensating).
Reality is not mind-dependent; it persists whether or not it is perceived, no? Do "minds" generate the world around it?
That is the question I am curious about too.
Mostly because this question has real life applications. And answering this question can help countless people who struggle with sensory deficiencies and how it effects the psychological aspect of the mind.
But this thought also leads me to ask myself this question does consciousness conform to reality or does reality conform to our consciousness?
And if it is the latter does knowledge have any relevance?
Than I am forced to ask if it is consciousness that creates reality why can’t we manifest what we want? Whatever I choose to believe will become my reality.
But in vain, for it seems there was nothing to elicit.
Can you validate the reality without sensory activity? I don't feel that they are in the realm of validation. Because they exist in different dimension.
Huh?
ETA: Just to emphasize, Banno is a native English speaker. Your factoid on English is just that... some factoid... something some grammar teacher taught you once. That doesn't make it correct. There is no Académie d'anglais. Feel free to ask Banno for clarification, but there's something fundamentally wrong about trying to lecture native English speakers about how they're supposed to speak English.
So? "Okay" isn't a sentence. "Aha" isn't a sentence. "Yes" isn't a sentence. "Yes, sir" isn't a sentence. But "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is a sentence. Apparently, though, "So?", "And?", "Okay", "Aha", "Yes", and "Yes, sir" all communicate something meaningful in English, yet "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" does not.
Quoting Corvus
Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gire and gimble in the wabe.
Pray tell, what point are you now lecturing me about? I don't accept your standard of correctness or rightness of English, so if you're going to lecture me about it, you're going to have to justify it with something a wee bit better than begging the question.
ETA: For your question begging fun:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/minor%20sentence
I was just replying to the other person on his response to me. He was insisting "And" was a sentence. I told him that it is not. There is nothing more to it than that. You seemed to have joined this "bandwagon of native speakers of English, and if one is not, then he must be wrong". It is not even logical, or making sense to say that all native speakers English is alway correct. Anyway, it is not my interest debating about this with you anymore. I am just interested in the definition of reality and world, and possible validation methods on them.
Well technically he's right. It's a minor sentence. Whether or not it's a "proper sentence" sounds like something we shouldn't really care about.
Quoting Corvus
You seem to be missing a foundational point. Were it not for a "bandwagon of native speakers of English", there would be no such thing as English. Real linguists study how native language speakers speak; real lexicographers document how native language speakers use words; and so on. The definition of the language is in the commonality established by this bandwagon. (And just so there's no confusion, the context of "correct" here is simply "correct English").
Quoting Corvus
Good. In the future, you should not care about this stuff at the start. There's literally no point in telling someone about "proper sentences" having nouns and verbs. We're all speaking English; if something clear is being communicated, there's not really anything left to say. Just focus on content.
That is my question I ask to all scholars who acknowledge science as the final truth?
How can you differentiate the reality of the external (World) and the internal (In your mind)? Is science able to discriminate the two? And what evidence must we search for to discriminate the two?
To answer these questions will validate scientific finding without doubt.
It’s a paradox that I struggle with in my mind and why I am on this forum.
The goal of science, or one of the goals, is to be able to describe what happens when no human being is around. It's far from trivial, being able to disentangle what belongs "out there" as opposed to "in here", there may be no neat cut-off point in this respect.
I suspect the more math intensive something is, the less it corresponds to our own representation of the world. When we apply numbers to things in the world, what we seem to be doing is describing some structure and not what's "inside the structure". Russell talk about this, though the doctrine tends to be called "epistemic structural realism".
Why this seems to be true, as opposed to something else is not well known, so far as I've been able to see. It's one of the hardest questions of them all.
By the way, I was talking to Banna. Who are you, and why are you speaking to me on behalf of him? I wasn't even talking to you. It sounds like you are ganging up for someone, and shouting loud all over the street for no reasons.
I am just a member of this forum.
Quoting Corvus
By whose authority? You're just another member of this forum.
Yes, this isn't a pub. But, it is a philosophy forum open to the public. You would do better treating us like the peers we are, than low lives you have to get off of your high horse to talk to. Try adult-adult like transactions, and stop trying this adult-child mode.
Anyway, I thought you were done with this argument?
Well minor sentence? If you are a philosopher, would you accept that? To be honest, I don't accept the concept called Minor Sentence. It doesn't matter who wrote it or where you found it from. Just because it is in some Dictionary site, it all makes sense and right? No!
When you mentioned about it, and wrote the link, I rejected it immediately. Because it is like saying Minor death, and tell you that it is life but also a death. It is a word but also sentence? No to me, words are words. They make up sentences, but they are not sentences themselves.
It is like saying, a brick is a minor house, because it makes up a house. But is it? No. Illogical concepts and senseless ideas must be reasoned, and discarded immediately. That is what philosophy is about.
Yes, I don't feel this argument is worth your time or mine. But I just added what I thought, not to continue but to stop, and carry on with the investigation on validation of existence and reality without sensory activities.
Quoting Corvus
Quoting Corvus
Quoting Corvus
...are examples of minor sentences. That in mind, your diatribe is kind of hard to take seriously.
Whereas the uttered word by Banno was "And?" out of blue without any context or any scope of the meaning he intends to deliver. When you utter a word to someone who never exchanged any other words previously out of blue, then no one can expect or guess what the intention or meaning of the word is. And? ... the only thing I was sure at the point was, that it was not a complete sentence.
Experience is a cycle and the universe is a cycle.
Together we create an expansion effect.
A sense-retard is still a prevailing cycle and can build in mind the model of the other cycle that prevails externally or blindly follow the time-lapse nature of retarded-consciousness.
But I wanted to ask you even before that, what is your definition of reality. Does reality mean the World, the universe, or simply things around you, which is also called as external matters?
I doubt my eyes but I see, I doubt my ears but I hear, I doubt touch but I feel, I doubt my nose but I smell, I doubt my mouth but I taste. I only trust what the spirit witness.
What am I?
Answer that question for me and that is my reality.
Problem is that, they might be illusion or dream. How do you know they are the real or your dreams? You are already doubting about them.
And the other question is, is reality then always private? Does it then exist within only your perception?
So, if you cannot perceive any of them, does it mean that reality does not exist? The good old idealist vs. realist arguments, but I am still struggling to know which one is definitely correct.
My teacher once told “The one who seeks knowledge let him find it. If the knowledge they seek is found they will be troubled by what they know.”
That is why I preach about faith and trust. I also discourage the pursuit of control and power. Control and power may lead to self mutilation and mutilation to others.
Questions are infinite and the more you know the more questions will arise. If any speculation ever becomes validated than you will be burden by wonder. Wonder of why and if there is more. Finding yourself in a never ending cycle of questions and answers. This is the trouble he speaks of, the restlessness and the turmoil of thought.
Hell is described as Aporia, the existence of doubt, arrogant thinking and being devoid of compassion, love, mercy and forgiveness.
The only pursuit is peace and joy and the spread of it.
Our purpose is the acts of Compassion, Love, Mercy and Forgiveness.
This how reality is defined.
This may sound like a ridiculous scenario but bare with me. I understand I am transitioning away from the topic of spirituality to more like science fiction but “When in Rome” right?
I disagree with that statement due to the possibility of telepathic communication and how it may exist now through nature. This presumption was brought on because scientists discovered evidence of its existence through there research.
This discovery or potential of this discovery may change how we perceive reality.
If telepathic communication is possible then sensory input may become obsolete or not necessary to perceive reality.
“Scientists Prove That Telepathic Communication Is Within Reach“
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/scientists-prove-that-telepathic-communication-is-within-reach-180952868/
Even without the sensory faculties, your ability to experience hunger & thirst, emotions, your hormonal operations would not be compromised and so on.
Descriptions of reality are asserted through rulesets created by the intellect, not rulesets contingent upon "reality", whatever it is. Your rulesets don't need to meet any criteria besides your belief and your application of them. That's what faith is, that's what your views about arrogance, knowledge, whatever else, are. Just remember that most people are trying to form rulesets that can reliably predict the future, or follow some shared understanding, or describe things in accordance with ideas like logic, reason and etc.
If i.e you discourage the pursuit of power and control, your reasoning for doing so is X and if X is a claim about reality, then we can to some extent test this claim. We should do this because if X is incorrect then your reason for doing what you do is likely also incorrect. You could just ignore this possibility and nothing is stopping you from doing that but there is an argument that says that you should care. Your conclusion could be your own personal reality, a mixture of bias, anecdotal evidence and interpretation labelled wisdom. If X is verified, your reasoning is not validated in a scientific sense, your complicated interpretation cannot be validated by any science.
That you claimed X about reality and we can verify whether X is true or not causes problems for the idea of just creating your own reality. That your complicated interpretation cannot be validated by science doesn't stop other intellects from disagreeing with your reasoning. If you adhere in a basic sense to how logic and validity works, you try to be reasonable then you can also be demonstrated to be incorrect in your claims about how X means we should do Y. And so, there are significant limitations for you, they are only overcome by your flaws, basically, that you can be wrong but convinced you are correct, unreasonable but convinced you are being fair.
I'm not saying it's that simple but I think that's a fair starting point.
You also need to acknowledge things change, our environment change and that is why rules change.
I guess to put it simply, don’t get to comfortable things always change and you will need to adapt to the new rule set when it does. This concept always needs to be considered due to the existence of time and the unawareness of instances that cannot be observed.
Predicting things and finding structure is like building a damn and always assuming it will always be there. There will be rainy seasons that will cause a flood breakdown the damn you build.
As for my definition of reality, I am opened minded enough to a say I may be full of it. But that is my way of respecting change and excepting that my ideals and beliefs need to always be expendable. This way I can be receptive to new Truths.
This is my humble philosophy “Pop a beer and enjoy the ride.” If it is great, if not well it was one hell of a ride.
In many modern philosophical schools and traditions, your reality is your sensory perception. They are the same thing.
The concept of reality in Heidegerrian terms is that being which appears or presents (aletheia) into your perception.
If you can see something as something, then all other people who are presented to the object must be able to see it. If you hear something, then others around you must also be able to hear it. So, it can be qualified as real object or real sound, and they are part of the reality.
I totally welcome creative thinking, we could not land on the moon or explore Mars without it. Right now too many people behave like the church of old when it tried to be the sole authority over what we think. What fools these people are to restrict discussions to technological correctness as they know all that is important to know. Not only is that an excessively high opinion of what we know, but it would stop any further advancement if people didn't dare to think beyond the limits of common thought.
I believe we call telepathy a 5th sense? I am not sure how different thought waves are from sound waves and all the wireless digital information our computers and cell phones receive? I think there are so many mysteries we are better off enjoying them than we would be if some idiots had the power to restrict what we think about. And when it comes to telepathy there is a lot that indicates we should give it more attention.
That is a good point. Our bodies know a lot that we are not aware of. On top of that, most of our driving is done automatically. Our brains take a lot of shortcuts to reduce the amount of thinking we do. So now we have information without awareness of that information. This goes with self-talk and healing and the placebo effect. Then there are people with apparently no self-awareness. I think we are questioning our consciousness? We can perceive information without being fully aware of it and we can use our thoughts to influence our bodily functions and the direction our thoughts take.
That is more of a discriminatory opinion than an absolute fact. That statement has stereotypical innuendos assuming that every Church in the world is that way.
Yes, granted there are several incidents that church promotes ignorance whether it is through good intentions or maintaining there political agendas.
I believe religion has philosophical truths, if your conscious allows you to dismiss the cultural laws and just focus on its teachings. To me, Philosophy and Religion are twin brothers with identical attributes. They just don’t get along because they seek justification to condemn one another for there convictions.
I guess my argument is we manifest our own reality. Validation is irrelevant it only becomes relevant if the witness choose to believe in the evidence.
If you choose not to believe in the evidence than validation is none existent. For validation to exist the mind must believe to be true.
Maybe Truth is just up to the mind to interpret and whatever you believe is the truth. And that is how reality is perceived.
Mysticism, I hear, is about a certain kind of consciousness that I'm doubtful is real. One goal of mysticism is to be conscious without being conscious of something.
I suspect this is off-topic but I have a feeling it might be relevant at some level or in some sense.
Coming to the issue that the OP brings up for discussion, I'd say there's some confusion that needs to be cleared before we can arrive at a reasonable understanding of what existence means.
The first thing to note is consensus informs us that everything detectable, sense-based or instrument-based, is immediately classified as physical. If so, there can be no such thing as detectable and non-physical. What this means is there's no hope for someone trying to demonstrate the existence of the non-physical in terms of being detectable in some way or other.